The Thirteenth Crownmark

Seven years after a palace coup, exiled prince Caelan Vale hides as the failing owner of a Greyharbor inn — his royal magic sealed, his memories locked. When the lost Thirteenth Crownmark awakens on the frontier, a dying courier collapses at his door, and a bounty draws him into an expedition he cannot refuse. The Guild contracts are lucrative, but the party they throw him into is a powder keg of hidden agendas and carefully guarded secrets. Kestrel Marchetti is his sharp-tongued bounty-hunter boarder — she recognized Caelan as a fellow fugitive within three days, and her crippling debt to the underworld means she'll sell him out or die for him, never both. Lirien Voss, a disgraced academy mage, tracked the Crownmark's pulse straight to his inn; the glowing scar on her wrist proves she touched the seal before, and she bargains for access to his cracking memory with the cold hunger of a scholar who values knowledge over people. Seraphine Ashworth wears the name of the house that helped orchestrate the coup — a young, reckless knight who has no idea her father is a murderer, forcing Caelan to hate the sigil while he grudgingly respects the girl. And Father Aldric Veinhollow is a hunted priest who arrives bleeding, carrying a banned prophecy and addressing Caelan as Your Highness for all to hear — his motives are holy, perhaps, but his silence on the cost of the Crownmark is absolute. They don't choose each other. They're bound by competing contracts, black-market debts, and the invisible thread of the Crownmark's awakening magic. Every step into the frontier loosens Caelan's seal and tightens the group's fractious alliances. Trust is a currency none of them can afford. Five strangers. One Crownmark. No one to trust but each other — and that may not be enough. Support the novel and read ahead chapters on Patreon. https://patreon.com/httpswwwroyalroadcomfiction172013the_thirteenth_crownmark?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink